Bakers Journal August/September 2017 : Page 16

“To truly master the method it takes a year,” he says. “In the old days, it was a three-person operation: a roller, baker and service. We’ve grown and at our main shop there are three people to serve and a roller and baker.” There is only one baker on the oven. The roller’s most important task is to roll out the air. St-Viateur hasn’t changed its original method circa 1957. “There are no short cuts, trust me, I’ve looked,” he says. “It’s simple. You see the process.” Adjustments are minimal in the form of water temperature in the weather. The bakery used 100 per cent cold water in the summer, but adds some warm water when the blustery Montreal winter comes to town. He notes he is hearing a lot of interest in Montreal bagels right now, and says opening a bagel shop isn’t easy. St-Viateur has been “60 years in the making.” Morena represents timeless tradition and an incredibly honed baking art at St-Viateur. Turning further eastward, in Halifax, Gerry Lonergan is trying to “bust the myth that only two cities can make a proper bagel.” He doesn’t just mean replicating a Montreal or New York style bagel in a different city, because that’s been done. What Lonergan went after was creating an entirely new style, one he’s dubbed the East Coast style. He picked the aspects of New York and Montreal bagels that he liked, plus a dash of San Francisco influence to complete his hybrid. The resulting bagel is one he describes as looking like a Montreal bagel in appear-ance, but not being as dense. The bagel is not as fluffy as a New ACE Bakery’s new baguette bagels are created using the exact same dough as their traditional white baguette. Have you tried our exceptional brand of sea salt? SEA SALT Coarse 1-2 (25kg) Code: 4521 Code: 4523 Code: 4696 Fine 0.2-0.8 -with anti-caking additive (25kg) Fine 0.2-0.8 -without anti-caking additive (25kg) 15 McCulloch Ave. Unit #3 Etobicoke, ON, M9W 4M5 416 247-7444 www.bakersandus.ca York bagel either, and he uses sourdough cultures (inspired by San Francisco). “The flavour is a nice balance of acidity and sweetness. Different condiments draw out different alchemies.” Lonergan is selling the bagels out of his East Coast Bakery, an open concept 1200 sq. foot facility he opened in May 2016. He offers bagels and braided challah bread to the storefront, while also supplying 11 restaurants plus stand vendors with challah buns. A sourdough bread line is in the works. He also delivers to synagogues. Customers can see the process start to finish. Flour is mixed. He uses a higher gluten flour with a protein count of 13.2 per cent. After mixing, the dough has a short rest, and then is machine divided and shaped into rings. The dough is then hand moved/stretched to a honey sweetened water to boil for two to three minutes. Next, the dough is garnished with seeds or salt, whatever is called for in that batch. The bagels bake in a stone deck oven at 475 F and are typically done in 15 minutes. In total, Lonergan says it’s an 18-minute production rate. The process is pretty much on demand and leaves little or no waste. For staffing, his business requires himself plus two, but on a busy day, plus four. East Coast Bakery is open seven days a week, and has no seating or coffee. The only accoutrements are cream cheese he sells out of a fridge for customer convenience, and he describes it as “essentially set up as a factory open to the public to buy from.” His operation is certified kosher pareve. “I wanted that extra level of authenticity and level of stan-dards to prove we really are doing this the right way.” East Coast Bakery’s top sellers are the sesame and onion-all-in, although he notes some days he can’t keep the salt pretzel in stock. The onion bagel is internally referred to as the “sauvi-gnon blanc” because it “creeps up on the palate, explodes with flavour and then leaves a clean finish.” Lonergan, whose background is in computer programming www.bakersjournal.com 16 BAKERS JOURNAL / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017 2017-07-12 8:45 AM BJ_Rudolph_BakersandUs_AugSept17_CSA.indd 1 PHOTO CREDIT: ACE BAKERY